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1. The prayer of Christ. In a praying posture He will be found when the enemy comes; He will be taken upon His knees. He was pleading hard with God in prayer, for strength to carry Him through this heavy trial, when they came to take Him. And this prayer was a very remarkable prayer, both for the solitariness of it, "He withdrew about a stone's cast" (verse 41) from His dearest intimates — no ear but His Father's shall hear what He had now to say — and for the vehemency and importunity of it; these were those strong cries that He poured out to God in the days of His flesh (Hebrews 5:7). And for the humility expressed in it: He fell upon the ground, He rolled Himself as it were in dust, at His Father's feet.

2. This Scripture gives you also an account of the agony of Christ, as well as of His prayer, and that a most strange one; such as in all respects never was known before in nature.

3. You have here His relief in this His agony, and that by an angel dispatched post from heaven to comfort Him. The Lord of angels now needed the comfort of an angel.It was time to have a little refreshment, when His face and body too stood as full of drops of blood as the drops of dew are upon the grass.

1. Did Christ pour out His soul to God so ardently in the garden, when the hour of His trouble was at hand? Hence we infer that prayer is a singular preparative for, and relief under, the greatest troubles.

2. Did Christ withdraw from the disciples to seek God by prayer? Thence it follows that the company of the best men is not always seasonable. The society of men is beautiful in its season, and no better than a burden out of season. I have read of a good man, that when his stated time for closet-prayer was come, he would say to the company that were with him, whatever they were, "Friends, I must beg your excuse for a while, there is a Friend waits to speak with me." The company of a good man is good, but it ceases to be so, when it hinders the enjoyment of better company. One hour with God is to be preferred to a thousand days' enjoyment of the best men on earth.

3. Did Christ go to God thrice upon the same account? Thence learn that Christians should not be discouraged, though they have sought God once and again, and no answer of Peace comes. If God deny you in the things you ask, He deals no otherwise with you than He did with Christ.

4. Was Christ so earnest in prayer that He prayed Himself into a very agony? Let the people of God blush to think how unlike their spirits are to Christ, as to their prayer-frames. Oh, what lively, sensible, quick, deep, and tender apprehensions and sense of those things about which He prayed, had Christ! Though He saw His very blood starting out from His hands, and His clothes dyed in it, yet being in an agony, He prayed the more earnestly. I do not say Christ is imitable in this; no, but His fervour in prayer is a pattern for us, and serves severely to rebuke the laziness, dulness, torpor, formality, and stupidity that is in our prayers. Oh, how unlike Christ are we! His prayers were pleading prayers, full of mighty arguments and fervent affections. Oh, that His people were in this more like Him!

5. Was Christ in such an agony before any hand of man was upon Him merely from the apprehensions of the wrath of God with which He now contested? Then surely it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God, for our God is a consuming fire.

6. Did Christ meet death with such a heavy heart? Let the hearts of Christians be the lighter for this when they come to die. The bitterness of death was all squeezed into Christ's cup. He was made to drink up the very dregs of it, that so our death might be the sweeter to us.

(J. Flavel.)

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KJV: And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and his disciples also followed him.

WEB: He came out, and went, as his custom was, to the Mount of Olives. His disciples also followed him.